Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 November 1941 — Page 20
NOTE: This letter is written in defense of a mother who is worried about her 14-year-old son!s interest . in kissing girls, and takes issue with - the answer that such terest is normal for his age. The gestion I was made that the mothe | might be Jealous.
DEAR JANE JORDAN — You # astonish me by the lack of wisdom - you show in your column. As far as I can see you never see the point ‘of the writer, right or wrong. Usual‘oly you twist everything around .under your term, jealousy. What +
cerned . about her 14-year-old ‘son who has taken up with “the fast crowd” jealous? I doubt it very, very much. I believe she cut the apron strings long ago and the cuddling of her baby went with it. This mother wants her son to grow “=up respecting the kisses of ladies. # There are too many years ahead of 4 a 14-year-old son before he can ' take any girl seriously. What do you think causes marriages at 14, . mothers at 15, and divorces at 16? : Don’t you think much more profitable advice would be to interest the lad in hobbies for the betterment of his mind and character than to let his emotions fly loose? Let us interest him in a better class of girls if her must have them. Boys mature later than girls; so the maturity date surely is not at 13 or 14 for them. Please bring this case up again in| your column for new consideration.—BOBBY.
Answer:—I did not say that a boy of 13 or 14 was mature, Far from it. What I said was that his + interest in, kissing the girls was 5; about on time. Within the next four 5 or five years this boy must establish heterosexuality, or adjustment the opposite sex, and it cannot > be done in a vacuum. It only can be \ ccomplished by association with girls and if a few kisses are ex- : charged in the process, there is no ‘# cause for alarm. Anything, no matter how well meant, which tends to i delay, divert or discourage this all i important adjustment is not in the i interests of the child, the parents or society. Parents are so fearful ‘that something untoward is going to happen that they lose sight of the fact that nothing more tragic possibly could happen than that the child should fail to establish his own heterosexuality, and that if it is not done in adolescence it is not * done at all. Children who marry at 14, become parents at 15 and get a divorce at 16 are not those who have ‘ been sympathetically handled and - understood by their parents. Rather § are they neglected children from 1. broken homes, or children who have r been harshly repressed and frus- § trated in their first awkward at- ! tempt to- make love. The boy who kisses at 14 without being ridiculed or reprimanded by his elders is not the one who takes his first love affairs seriously, nor does he neces- . sarily grow up with no respect for - women. Hobbies and intellectual im- § provement are fine things but girls| { are equally importént. j Space is too short for an adequate . discussion = of jealousy. I believe p a most honest mothers will admit some pangs when first. their sons Jo ‘attracted to girls. It marks an i. end of an era in the child's develi opment and the beginning of his break with home. [She may have renounced the cuddling. of her baby . but all too often she still cherishes the unconscious wish to delay or * prevent her son from growing up. 1 If this ‘were not true, why should she protest the first signs of departure from childhood so vigorously? JANE JORDAN .
Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will answer your questions * in this columy daily. :
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